PDF, etc
Common Sense Theory of Consciousness (CSTC) (pdf) This is the current revision of a life document, intended as a preprint for PhilArchive. It rest on the following insight. Our reality is the result of many turns of Hofstadter's strange loop that enables a system to learn experiencing its own reality. This works by correlating internal actions and external perceptions that results in unity Bayesian certainty of being an agent, just like being certain of any other perception. We are immersed in the unmistakable experience of the Self. Without symbolic language, human reality as we know it would not be possible. The identity of a quale can be a substitute for a symbol; even a fetus or an animal can have experiences, provided it can discover for itself that it can act. Otherwise it functions no differently than a thermostat. When learning language, words are mapped to qualia. This insight makes the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" vanish. A further insight is tha...